Drew Sanders’ road to the NFL isn’t quite a Johnny Cash song, but suffice it to say he’s been almost everywhere, man.
He attended middle school in Oregon, then three Texas high schools in four years as his dad, a coach, got hired at Lake Dallas one year, Colleyville Heritage the next and then Denton Ryan. Then Sanders went to college, where he spent two years at Alabama and one at Arkansas.
Seven years, six schools, four states, just as many alignments on the football field.
Quarterback? He did that in high school. Tight end, too. Outside linebacker, inside linebacker, pass-rusher, cover man, Hackensack, Fond du Lac. He’s played pretty much everywhere, man.
So while getting up to speed in the NFL as a third-round draft pick of the Broncos is undoubtedly a big move, learning and getting comfortable on the fly is nothing new for the 6-foot-5, 233-pounder.
“It’s all kind of going by pretty fast,” Sanders allowed last month at Denver’s rookie minicamp. “A lot of stuff happening and a lot of adjusting going on, but I’m having a great time.”
Sanders stood out physically at that minicamp and continued to impress through OTAs, though he appeared to be a limited participant in the Week 3 practice open to reporters. There’s no real hitting until training camp and an interception in rookie minicamp is an eye-opener, but it won’t win you a job in September.
All the same, the first impression of Sanders is a favorable one thanks in part to what else? His versatility.
“He’s got a unique set of skills,” veteran inside linebacker Josey Jewell said.
A DC’s dream
Charles Kelly knew it from the time he watched Sanders in high school.
The University of Colorado defensive coordinator at the time coached safeties at Alabama, a school that picks players as much as it recruits them.
Nick Saban and company gladly picked Drew Sanders.
“I thought he was one of the best players in the country coming out that year. I really did,” Kelly told The Post recently. “Just me, now. I coached the secondary when I was at ’Bama, but I’ve been a defensive coordinator for a while and I’m just looking at this guy thinking about some of the inside ’backers I’ve coached in the past like Telvin Smith, Christian Jones, some of those guys.
“He had those same qualities and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘This guy is going to be a good NFL player.’
Kelly and fellow Bama-to-Colorado defensive coach Sal Sunseri weren’t alone in their lofty expectations for Sanders.
The consensus ranking systems for recruiting services 247Sports and On3 had him pegged as a five-star prospect. Pretty much everybody in country wanted him. Not only did he end up at Alabama, but he got thrust into action almost right away opposite fellow freshman and 2023 No. 2 overall draft pick Will Anderson.
As it happens, Sanders’ opportunity came after now-Broncos outside linebacker Christopher Allen got hurt in the middle of the season.
“(Sanders) has got a very good skillset and he’s a tough guy. He loves football. He’s a ball guy,” Kelly said. “You put all that together and you can have a really good player. He and Will Anderson both were playing a lot and he was a productive player.”
Kelly thought Alabama would have used Sanders more in the middle of the field in his third collegiate season, but instead Sanders transferred to Arkansas and put together a monster junior year for the Razorbacks. He racked up six sacks in the first three weeks. Then he had 12 tackles against his former team. Then 16 against Mississippi State. For the year, Sanders tallied 9.5 sacks (13.5 tackles for loss), 103 tackles overall and three forced fumbles en route to first-team All-SEC and All-American honors.
All the while, his NFL stock buzzed.
Some analysts thought he could go as early as the back of the first round. Instead, the Broncos nabbed him at the top of the third.
“I think Denver got a steal where they got him,” Kelly said.
What’s the vision?
After making the pick, Broncos coach Sean Payton posited that perhaps some teams didn’t know exactly how to think about Sanders.
His “vision might be one which varied around the league because he’s a transfer from Alabama. He’s played some outside linebacker. He’s played some inside linebacker; he had a ton of pressure production last year.”
Is he an edge player? Middle-of-the-field only? Sub package? Tweener?
The Broncos decided they had no such uncertainty.
“Our vision for him is at inside linebacker and four-core special teams player who can go and stem down to the outside,” Payton said. “We saw so many good traits with him and such good production.”
That’s not to say he’ll be put in a box and kept there.
In fact, Sanders arrives in the NFL to a defensive coordinator who specializes in maximizing unique players’ skillsets.
Earlier this spring, Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay lauded Vance Joseph’s work in Arizona with safety Budda Baker and linebacker Isaiah Simmons.
Jaguars defensive line coach Brenston Buckner, who coached with Joseph on the Cardinals’ staff, said there’s a simple reason the Broncos’ new D-coordinator has such a good feel in that department.
“He’s a walking example, a guy who played quarterback in college and made his living in the pros as a defensive back,” Buckner said. “It takes some development. …
“He’s like ‘I’d rather be slow with a guy so we can build him through success rather than let build him through mistakes. It’s hard to coach a guy when all you’re coaching is his mistakes. Vance always put guys in situations where they can be successful.”
Impact potential
What that looks like for Sanders in 2023 remains to be seen. The Broncos brought back Alex Singleton on a three-year deal to play next to Jewell and have Jonas Griffith — Jewell’s starting partner at the start of 2022 — returning off a nasty foot injury.
That could mean a limited role defensively for Sanders or, if he catches on quickly, it could give Joseph license to use him in any manner of ways.
“When guys are multiple, you can create different looks, do different things and the whole thing about, to me, at any level, is guys have to process the information,” Kelly said. “That’s the one thing that I feel like Drew has been able to do. He can process. All the great players, you can take size, you can take speed — what they run at the Combine — and that’s great. I know there’s a reason for it, but at the end of the day, it’s can you process and can you make plays? He can do those things.”
The new head of the Buffs’ defense talks about Sanders much the same way Payton does: Put him in the middle of the field and let him do a little bit of everything.
“I talked to a couple of guys with the Broncos and I told them, I said ‘I don’t have any doubt he can play behind the line of scrimmage,’” Kelly said.
“He just gives you so much versatility and I think Vance will do a good job with him.”
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